


the idiot's route to confessing a crush

by crimsvn



Category: Minecraft (Video Game), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Fluff and Humor, Getting Together, Idiots in Love, M/M, Mutual Pining, Oblivious Clay | Dream (Video Blogging RPF), Oblivious GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Pre-Slash, Some French Dialogue, Tutoring, as in dream's first language in this is french
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-14
Updated: 2021-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-22 16:54:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30041796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsvn/pseuds/crimsvn
Summary: Dream had a crush on George, but he was also much too scared to act on it.So instead, like the complete and utter fool he was, in order to get to know George better through one-on-one time together, Dream gets George to tutor him in a language he already speaks.His first language, in fact.
Relationships: Clay | Dream & GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF), Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound (Video Blogging RPF)
Comments: 39
Kudos: 892





	the idiot's route to confessing a crush

**Author's Note:**

> this has been a long time in the works now LMAO but it's finally here!!
> 
> there is a teensy bit of french dialogue but most of it is indirectly translated through dialogue and such :)

Dream liked to think he was clever sometimes.

Keywords being  _ he liked to think,  _ as Sapnap would adamantly advocate otherwise. And Karl. And Quackity. And any friend of his that  _ wasn’t  _ Bad.

So, in conclusion, maybe Dream  _ thought  _ he was clever, or liked to believe he was, but that certainly didn’t mean he  _ was.  _ And perhaps that realization should have been much easier to come to when he’s requesting a tutor for French class, despite his good grades and the fact that it was his  _ first fucking language. _

Really, there had been no reason for Dream to be in the class in the first place, but a crush on a fellow A-student did that to a person. Or, more specifically, did that to  _ Dream.  _ His friends thought he was crazy, and he didn’t exactly blame them, but Dream was desperate and much too awkward to go out of his way to talk to George. 

So he has the brilliant idea of forcing himself into one-on-one conversation to get over his fears by asking his teacher about getting George to tutor him for the class.

“Clay, your grades are just fine. Top of the class, in fact. There’s no reason you’d need a tutor,” she tells him. Honestly, Dream hadn’t quite known what he was expecting. What she was saying was true, really, but he was a persistent idiot if nothing else.

“I know that,” Dream says. “But I was thinking my conversation could use some practice  _ outside _ of class. I think a tutor could be good for that.”

Dream’s teacher sighs, taking out a sticky note and scrawling out a reminder to talk to George about the request. Dream thanks her sheepishly and leaves for lunch.

Sapnap is waiting for him at the door, his bag already slung over his shoulder. His eyebrow is raised, curious as to why Dream had stayed behind, wondering what Dream had been talking to their teacher about. Sapnap greets Dream with a friendly pat on the shoulder as they head in the direction of the cafeteria.

“What—”

Dream decides to save Sapnap the trouble of asking. He’d get shit for his idea at some point or another—there was no purpose in delaying the inevitable. “I’m getting a tutor,” Dream offers as explanation, though he doesn’t elaborate.

Sapnap frowns. “Aren’t you, like—”

“French? Yeah.”

“Then why—oh.” A shit eating grin grows on Sapnap’s face. He smacks Dream’s shoulder playfully. “It’s because of George, isn’t it? Oh, it totally is. You’re such a fucking idiot.”

“Thanks,” Dream deadpans.  _ “Connard.” _

“I may be an asshole, but I’m also a _right_ asshole,” Sapnap hums self-assuredly. “George is gonna figure you out in like, a week tops. You’re a shit actor, and not to mention the fact that I see the face you make every time someone makes a common grammar mistake.”

Dream huffs. “It’s not even the grammar mistakes,” he mutters. “I just wished people would realize shit like “ _ je suis excité”  _ does not mean what they think it does.”

“You’re a snob, I get it. Not all of us were born in France,” Sapnap says. He spots Karl and Quackity across the cafeteria and waves. They pause, and Sapnap turns to Dream. “So are you gonna tell them or am I?”

“Is neither an option?”

“Did I offer to not talk about it?”

Dream rolls his eyes, and continues walking. Sapnap trails along. “It’s not even like I’d have to worry about grammar mistakes with George though, right? Because he’s literally top of the class asides from me and like, two other people?”

Sapnap shrugs. “Maybe, but you might have to make a few mistakes yourself to make it seem like you still need a tutor. I know for a  _ fact  _ that it will hurt your soul, deep down at its core. And I will gladly watch you wilt away in the face of your own stupidity.”

Dream shoved Sapnap just as they reached the table where their friends had been waiting. “Stop being all poetic, it’s weird as shit.”

“Why is Sapnap being poetic?” Karl asks. He sits amongst open notes and textbooks for about three different classes, and if Dream had to guess, at least one of them was to study for a test happening later that day, and the others for homework due that he hadn’t yet done. 

“Sapnap is being poetic because he has to offer sage advice to a complete idiot,” Sapnap explains. Dream groans and lets his head hit the sticky cafeteria table, burying his face in his arms as Sapnap continues, “Dream here thought what better way to get closer to his crush than to get a tutor in French of all things.”

Quackity snickers. “But Dream, aren’t you—”

“Yes,” Sapnap and Dream reply in unison.

“Dumbass,” Quackity says. “You’re gonna get caught.”

“That’s what I was telling him!” Sapnap exclaims, and Dream sinks further into his seat. He honestly wished the ground would just open up and swallow him whole. At least then he wouldn’t have to suffer through the incessant teasing that would surely come about. That had  _ already _ come about.

“Aren’t you supposed to be smart?” Karl comments. He’s furiously scribbling equations down in one of his notebooks. He flips a page of his calculus textbook. 

“Aren’t you supposed to do your homework at  _ home?”  _ Dream retorts, shooting Karl a glare. Karl doesn’t spare him a glance as he frantically does his work. Quackity flicks a straw wrapper at Dream’s head.

“How’d you even get the teacher to agree to have him tutor you? You’re literally one of her best students,” Quackity says. “Though granted, it’s totally cheating. Same thing if I took Spanish. Morally wrong, I think.”

Dream frowns. “Well your opinion doesn’t matter, now does it? Leave me and my easy A alone. You’re just jealous.”

“Jealous of what? Staring at the back of George’s head while you “learn” about verb tenses? Keep it all for yourself, I don’t want any part in that,” Quackity says. It’s all lighthearted, of course, but Dream hated how obvious his crush was, at least to his friends. It was dumb,  _ stupid.  _ George was just some boy. 

A  _ pretty  _ boy, granted, but still just some  _ boy.  _ Some boy who was soft-spoken and had a nice accent, some boy who was incredibly smart and good at just about any subject thrown at him. Some boy with a bright smile that rarely appeared, some boy who always had sarcastic quips at the ready no matter what was said to him.

Dream was  _ whipped  _ for  _ just some boy.  _ And all his friends could see it.

_ “Va te faire foutre,”  _ Dream grumbles.

_ “Chinga tu madre,”  _ Quackity snaps back.

“Hey, language!” Bad suddenly chides from behind Dream, sliding into the seat next to him. Dream scrunches his nose in disgust at the cafeteria food Bad sets down on the table. “What were you even talking about that involves insulting each other, anyways?”

Sapnap relaunches into an explanation to catch Bad up to speed, while Dream continues to silently curse the world.

Alright, so maybe he  _ wasn’t  _ clever. But the hole was dug far too deep for him to crawl out at this point. His fate was set in stone. Perhaps he should hope George catches on immediately, and all Dream would have to be left with was the embarrassment of a failure of an idea.

Dream receives an email from his teacher during his next period concerning setting him up with George as his tutor. He’s meant to meet George in the library after school and figure out a schedule amongst themselves since it had been so last minute. Dream knew it wouldn’t count as extra credit or anything, so he assumed their teacher just didn’t care enough to feel the need to be acting third party. Not that Dream minded.

At the end of the day, Dream finds George sitting at one of the round tables in the designated “study area” of the library, typing away on a laptop. George pauses to stretch his neck, collarbone peeking out from under his shirt as he did so. Dream had to clench his jaw to keep it from falling open at the sight.

Dream dumps his bag on the table and slides into the chair across from George. The brunet looks up at him, devoid of emotion—though, if anything, he seemed unimpressed and vaguely skeptical. Dream didn’t blame him, it wasn’t like George was completely unaware of Dream’s performance in their French class.

They sit staring at each other in an awkward silence for a moment, George perhaps waiting for Dream to speak first, and Dream scrambling for anything to say.

Dream mouth bobs open and shut as he searches for the words, like a fish out of water. “I’m here for—”

“Tutoring?” George finishes. He raises an eyebrow. “Why?”

Dream pauses. “Why? What do you mean  _ why?  _ To practice French, obviously,” he says, awfully defensive. He shrinks in on himself, folding his arms over his chest. A tingling, furious blush threatens the back of Dream’s neck. He’s thankful George was more interested in whatever he was working on than to concern himself with Dream’s discomfort.

“I got that part,” George says blankly. “Since when?”

“Since when what?”

“Since when do you need a tutor for French?” George clarifies. “You’re like… the teacher’s favourite. Surely you’re not failing.”

Dream was presented with two options, then, or so he thought. Perhaps the rabbit’s pace of his heart beat and the onset panic were blinding to logic and common sense, but Dream narrows down his next words to two choices: admit the truth to George, suffer the embarrassment, and move on with his life,  _ or  _ he could lie and see just how far he could push limits.

George’s expectant look panics Dream further, so as his face blossomed a bright pink, Dream sheepishly grits out, “Well… about that…”

George frowns, unsure. His eyes search Dream’s face as if looking for a lie—which, to be fair, was not entirely unreasonable. “You’re kidding.”

Dream shakes his head, maybe a tad enthusiastically, and the web has been woven. “Not kidding. I’ve, uh. Been struggling, this semester. With the grammar and concepts, and, well. You know.”

George chews his bottom lip, assessing. As if he wanted to disagree with Dream, call bullshit, but he says nothing. At least, he doesn’t say anything of the sort. George huffs. “Tell me at what point you started having issues, then, so I can figure out where we should start. No need to waste time.”

Dream nods along to George’s suggestion, though truly none of the words register as he watches George speak. With his accent, and the way he enunciated his words, Dream couldn’t help but only pay attention to the way the words formed in George’s mouth, rather than their actual content.  _ God,  _ he was pathetic.

George quirks an eyebrow at Dream’s lack of response. Dream blinks, his mind lacking an answer. Lacking  _ words.  _ If he wanted his need for tutoring to be believable, perhaps Dream ought to pay attention.

“Dream? Did you hear what I said?”

“I, um. I—” Dream stammers.  _ “Subjontif. Conditionnel.  _ One of those. Both. I don’t know. For starters.”

“Helpful,” George deadpans, though with a few clicks and a moment of typing on his laptop, Dream assumes George marks it down. George huffs. “We can just start with that, yeah? And if you think of anything, let me know. I assume you have my email?”

Dream vaguely recalls their teacher linking George’s school email in the message she had sent him earlier, but still he shakes his head.

George doesn’t quite look like he believes Dream, but he still asks, “Do you have somewhere to write it down, then?”

Dream hums, and digs through his backpack for one of his notebooks and a pen. He sets them on the table, expecting George to tell him aloud his email, but instead he pulls the notebook towards him and scrawls down the letters himself, before pushing the paper back to Dream. George shuts his laptop and shoves it into his own bag.

“Just send me what time and day works best for you, and we can work it out from there,” George instructs. He stands, throwing the strap of his backpack over his shoulder. “I’ll see you later, Dream.”

“See you later,” Dream mumbles after him, watching as George leaves the library. He slumps further into his seat, dragging his hands over his face. He groans. “I’m  _ such  _ an idiot.”

But his fate was set. George would tutor him.

In Dream’s first language.

_ Awesome. _

* * *

_ “T’as fait  _ quoi?” Dream’s younger sister exclaims between laughter. Originally, he had meant to keep the tutoring scheme to himself, however, his sister appeared to have other plans.

“I told you in French, and now I’ll tell you in English,” Dream grits out, “I needed a tutor for… a class… where George just so happens to be one of the tutors of. I didn’t _do_ anything.”

She raises a skeptical eyebrow, as if to say, _yeah. Sure, Dream._ She was, of course, aware of Dream’s pathetic crush on George—it was difficult to hide when she pried into just about every social aspect of Dream’s life—but she hadn’t been aware of just _how_ desperate he could get, and honestly? Even Dream could see how sad it was.

At least she didn’t know the tutoring was for  _ French,  _ because then Dream would never hear the end of it.

Dream was meant to have headed to the public library about five minutes ago for his first session with George, but his sister had caught him in a lie halfway out the door, so he had been stuck explaining the truth for much longer than he intended. George would probably be pissed he was late.

And, well. George wasn’t exactly  _ pissed  _ when Dream finally flopped into a chair across from him well beyond their planned meetup time, but he wasn’t exactly  _ pleased,  _ either.

“You’re late,” George says dryly. He says it in that dumb, parental  _ I’m not mad, just disappointed  _ way, and if it weren’t George doing it, the tone might’ve irked Dream, but he says nothing more than an uttered, hurried apology as he pulls out his French notes and splays them out on the table between them.

The night prior, Dream had gone through the idiotic and gruelling task of rewriting his homework and notes on the subjects he had mentioned to George, forcing in beginner’s errors that hurt his soul to write out. He needed to be believable, of course, but he had been quick to learn that obviously he was not going to enjoy keeping up the act.

He felt like a double agent, of sorts. A horrible, shitty version of a double agent—but a double agent nonetheless.

George scans over the notes, and Dream cringes just as much as George does, though he tries to school his expression to the best of his ability when George peers up at him after giving his writing a look over. 

“Okay, maybe you do need help with this,” George mutters, sitting back in his chair. “Do you think you know the general idea of the present subjunctive at least?”

_ Yes I do,  _ Dream thinks. “No, not really,” he says. “It doesn’t make much sense to me, if I’m being honest.”

“O-kay,” George drawls, pushing Dream’s work back towards him. “From the start then. Though, we learned about the present subjunctive at the beginning of the semester, so why didn’t you try and get help then?”

Dream blinks, trying to think up an excuse. The class had been smooth sailing up to that point, and would  _ continue  _ to be smooth sailing, but George wasn’t aware of that. At least, he wasn’t aware of it  _ yet.  _

It was one thing for Dream to force incorrect written answers in his free time and under no pressure, but it was an entirely different thing for him to rewire his brain to force incorrect answers out loud and on the spot. It was a strain, and quite frankly the most tiring thing Dream had done to date, but he manages.

Sort of.

“—so for this one you had the right verb, but the wrong tense. Think you could tell me why that is?” George quizzes. He had been going through one of the worksheets Dream had fucked up on purpose, slowly working their way through corrections. Having George be the one teaching Dream had been the only thing making the session bearable. 

“Is it the…  _ que  _ preceding it?” Dream replies hesitantly, doing his best to act interested, like he really had to think about the answer.

George smiles at him, though Dream knew it wasn’t a real smile, only one meant to encourage a failing student like George thought Dream was—but Dream would take what he could get. He hoped he didn’t appear  _ too  _ lovestruck looking at George, chin resting in the palm of his hand.

“That’s exactly it,” George says, nodding. “So do you think you could re-conjugate the verb then?”

Dream felt like a child, reciting elementary-level sentences with verb tenses that had just become second nature to recognize for him in his seventeen years of life. Dream does his best to suppress a sigh. “In the subjunctive it’d be  _ il faut que tu fasses tes devoirs,”  _ he tells George.

George nods again, notes down the correction on Dream’s paper, and hands it back to the blond. “You know, your pronunciation is awful good for someone struggling with learning the language,” George comments, which sends a jolt of panic through Dream’s body.

Dream shrugs and sits back in his chair, hoping the alarm isn’t evident on his face. “I don’t see why my accent has to be bad even if I don’t understand stuff,” Dream excuses. “I barely speak a lick of Spanish, but my pronunciation is still good. Or, well. That’s what Alex says.”

“You’re friends with Alex?” George asks, and suddenly it’s as if their previous conversation ceased to exist. Not that Dream minded—any way of steering away from talking about his French skills Dream would accept graciously and with open arms. He was not a good enough actor to continue without break.

Dream hums. “I am, yeah. Even despite how much of an asshole he can be.”

George snorts, and if even for a millisecond Dream is under the impression he’s cracked George’s façade. “Tell me about it,” he agrees. “Group projects with him are hell. Granted, he’s a hard worker when he wants to be, but good  _ god.” _

Dream laughs, maybe a bit too loud for their current setting, but it’s whole-hearted and bubbles up from his stomach and up his throat into a wheeze. George seems amused, though not judgemental like Dream might suspect him to be. The brunet just had that  _ look  _ to him, but it wasn’t apparent on his face as he observed Dream’s humour. 

“What’s so funny?” George inquires.

Dream takes a breath to calm himself down. “That’s only the half of it, George. Alex is a goddamn prick when you get to know him. Funny, and certainly kind on occasion, but an absolute _pinche_ _pendejo_ as he might put it.” 

“Is that so?” George chuckles, and it’s music to Dream’s ears. But then unfortunately, the moment following, George’s façade reappears like there hadn’t been a break in the first place. He hardens back into tutor-mode in an instant and Dream mourns the genuine friendliness, the step outside professionalism. “Do you think you’re alright for subjunctive this week? I don’t want to overload you with information, since it’s already been an hour.”

Dream checks his phone, and surely enough, it  _ has  _ been an hour. Dream thought he was being generous thinking that only half that amount of time had passed, but apparently not.

“Dream?”

“Hm? Oh. Yeah, yeah, I think I’ve got it,” Dream says. Of course, he already understood the concept thoroughly, and another hour would do his brain much less harm than George might expect, but it was probably best they parted ways for that week—any more “acting” and Dream might implode.

George claps his hands together. “Good! Great. Same time next week, then?”

Dream nods, and offers George a small smile. “Sure, sounds great,” he says, as if he had any other plans to begin with. For good measure Dream adds, “By the way, thanks a lot, George. Really appreciate the help and all that.”

“It’s no problem.” George shrugs, waving Dream off. “It’s easy stuff, anyways. Not much of a bother.”

_ Easy stuff.  _ Dream almost wants to laugh. George really had no idea, then. Or so Dream thought, at least. His cover seemed yet to be blown.

They exchange awkward goodbyes and part ways, and Dream can’t help but feel a little hopeful. Obviously George was unaware of Dream’s ulterior motive, but time alone with George was time alone with George. Dream had no room to complain, even if it pained him to make mistakes on purpose as to not get himself caught.

He could do this. Dream could manage to play along for as long as it took him to build some semblance of a friendship with George, and later gather the courage to maybe even ask him out. And hopefully in the end, George would find Dream’s entire plan  _ endearing  _ or something when he discovered that Dream could, in fact, speak French the entire time.

_ He could do this. _

* * *

He could not do this.

In another world, another lifetime, maybe Dream would have been able to pull it off with ease—but certainly not in this one.

As weekly sessions turn into bi-weekly sessions, and they delve into more topics just as easy as the last for Dream, his web of lies begins to spiral out of control. At least, from  _ his  _ perspective.

To an outsider—to George, even—everything would appear entirely normal. It would seem like any old tutoring session, where George taught Dream concepts he already understood very well, unbeknownst to the brunet, and Dream sat and nodded like a good student, speaking and answering problems when necessary.

To Dream, it was absolute hell, trying to maintain his act and doing his best not to get tangled in the plethora of lies he had set forth for himself.

_ “I’m surprised you haven’t been caught yet,”  _ Sapnap had told him after a month.

_ “Well  _ I’m  _ still counting the days,”  _ Quackity had said.

_ “You guys are the worst,”  _ Dream had replied, face buried in his hands. His friends had all laughed, of course, because the entire situation had just become something for them to laugh about. Not that Dream particularly blamed them—he could see it being  _ kind of  _ funny from anyone’s but  _ his _ point of view.

However, even despite Dream’s struggle, it was manageable.

It was manageable because it was at a time late in the afternoon when he’d been wide awake for several hours, his brain functioning well enough to keep up his ploy. At such a time, Dream could make mistakes on purpose and keep himself from correcting George on the very few occasions he made a genuine error.

But then George had to go and ask about rescheduling one of their sessions for early (see: eleven A.M.) Sunday morning, since it was the next closest time he was available, and Dream agreed to it because he was smitten.

And  _ then _ George tacks on the fact that he couldn’t do it at the library that day, instead inviting Dream over to his house for their tutoring session. Dream thought he may never recover.

He goes along with it though, all smiling and friendly as George retreated down the hall and to wherever his next class was. Karl had done nothing but offer him a teasing pat on the shoulder as he, too, walked off to his next class.

So there Dream stood at the front door of the address George had provided him with, only semi-conscious and barely functional. It would be mornings like that day where Dream wished the idea of coffee wasn’t repulsive to him. Or maybe he could blame his fatigue on a shit night’s sleep.

Either or, Dream was fucked.

George greets him with a reserved smile, bordering on the edge of actual friendliness and familiarity, rather than remaining simply professional. Dream liked to think he had made some sort of step towards a friendship with George, even if the latter remained awfully blunt and sometimes completely rude in the off moments he  _ wasn’t  _ in “tutor-mode”. George takes a step aside to let Dream in.

Somehow, the interior of George’s house is exactly how Dream could have imagined it to be, though he tries not to make his wandering eyes obvious as George leads him to a dining room where notes and textbooks are already set out at the table. If Dream were more than semi-awake he knew he’d feel infinitely more awkward and out of place than he already felt as George tells him to sit and continues to act like nothing was wrong.

Not that anything  _ was  _ wrong.

“It’s the  _ superlatif  _ and  _ comparatif  _ today, right?” George asks, as if he wasn’t already set with a plan. Dream nods as he takes a seat.

“They’re supposed to be pretty simple though, right?” Dream says, though he already knew the answer. Of  _ course  _ they’d be simple, but George hums anyways.

“They are, yeah. So I won’t bother looking at your notes, I’ll just get you to write out a few examples you can think of and I can base the lesson there,” George suggests. He pushes a pencil and a blank piece of paper Dream’s way, offering him a few more instructions on what exactly he was looking for, and they settle into a comfortable silence with nothing more than the quiet scratches of the graphite to fill the air.

Riddled with sleep, Dream scrawls out sentences with the intention of writing them half-assed, but just as he passes the paper back to George, he realizes he omitted the mistakes.  _ Oh no. _

George draws his eyebrows together, a small frown tugging at the corners of his lips as he reads over Dream’s work. “Are you sure you need help with these?” George questions. “You seem to have a good enough understanding of them already.”

“Uh,” Dream says dumbly. 

“Uh?” George echoes. 

Dream blinks, his brain still muddled and swimming with nothing but the desire to go back to bed. “Uh,” Dream repeats. “I must’ve… gotten the concept mixed up with something else, I guess. Sorry.”

George, ever the skeptic, responds with, “What could you have possibly mixed them up with? Cause and condition are the next closest thing I can think of, and those aren’t nearly the same thing, Dream,” George says, but thankfully he doesn’t push further, much to Dream’s relief. He really wasn’t certain he could defend himself that morning. “Was there anything else you  _ actually  _ needed to work on? Or is this just gonna be a waste of both of our times?”

Dream’s heart sank at the harshness of George’s words, but he was right. Dream tries his best to think up a topic they had learned that semester, but comes up entirely blank. An embarrassed blush creeps up the back of his neck, an uncomfortable heat pricking at his skin under George’s gaze. 

“Dream, wh—”

“Conversation practice!” Dream blurts, then immediately curls in on himself at George’s mildly surprised expression. He clears his throat. “Conversation practice. Y’know, to get more comfortable with that sort of thing. Since we have oral exams at the end of the semester.”

George considers the suggestion for a moment, eventually nodding as if it were the first  _ good  _ idea he’s ever heard Dream express, which—that may actually be true. George shrugs. “Sure, we can do that. What do you want to talk about, then?”

_ Oh boy,  _ Dream panics.  _ Hadn’t thought that far ahead. _

Dream scrambles for an easy topic, but thinking was just so  _ difficult  _ running on maybe two hours of sleep if he were being generous. “We can talk about school?” Dream proposes. He awkwardly huffs out a laugh to play off his unease. “Easy topic, right?”

“I guess. So,” George pauses.  _ “Sont comment tes classes?” _

George maintains an easygoing conversation so it isn’t too miserable for Dream to slow down his pace and purposely fumble some words and conjugations, but by the end of it, Dream’s mental capacity is in the negatives, and that’s when he nearly messes up to an extent that he couldn’t possibly provide an excuse for.

_ “—quand j’ai presque… huit ans?J’ai déménagé aux les États-Unis de Fr—”  _ Dream pauses, just barely catching his slip up in time. “From Europe. I moved from Europe. To the States. When I was seven.”

George is hesitant in finding a reply, possibly catching the hitch in Dream’s words, but Dream prays that’s not the case. “I didn’t know you from Europe,” he says. “Where from?”

Dream panics. “I’m from, um,” he chokes out, trying to think of just  _ one  _ country. “From, uh… Germany! From Germany. I moved from Germany.”

George blinks. “Oh, cool. Do you speak any German?”

_ “Kaum,”  _ Dream says, pasting a smile on his face. He hoped it didn’t look too fake, or pained. “Hardly.”

George’s face falls as if sympathetic for Dream not knowing his supposed native language, but  _ if only he knew,  _ Dream thinks. “Sorry to hear that. Must suck to lose your first language, I’d guess?”

Dream sighs, though not for the reason George likely thought. It would suck, yeah, if German really  _ was  _ Dream’s first language, but alas. He shrugs, avoiding George’s eyes like he did every time a new lie was formed. 

“Kind of, but it’s not like we ever go back to Germany, so no need for me to use it,” Dream fibs. He picks at the corner of a worksheet. “It’d be cool to learn, though.”

“It would be, yeah,” George agrees. An unintentional silence falls over them, though it’s broken by the sound of the front door creaking open. George perks up while Dream just sinks low into his seat. He’d been plenty happy with just him and George in the house, because then at least he could only feel awkward in the presence of someone he’d already felt awkward in front of. Dream tries to subtly pull his notes in towards him in the hopes that George’s family coming home meant their session was over, as much as Dream liked being around George.

George frowns. “What are you doing? We still have fifteen minutes,” George says, nodding his head towards the wall behind Dream. Dream turns in his seat and sees the clock that had been sitting high above his head that did in fact indicate they still had time left in their session.  _ Putain de merde, dans le nom de Dieu— _

“Sorry, my bad,” Dream apologizes. “I hadn’t noticed.”

“I mean, unless you have somewhere to be—”

“No! No, I just, um.” Dream cringes at his panicked words. “It’s just, uh… time flies, right?”

George raises an eyebrow. “Have you been having fun?”

Dream makes a vague gesture with his hands as unfamiliar voices continue to chat away in the background. “Well, no—I mean  _ yes,  _ but, I—um,” Dream stammers. “It’s not really… that’s not really what I meant. I mean, not in a bad way! I don’t mind spending time with you at all, I just never had the chance to check, and—why are you laughing?”

George presses the back of his hand to his mouth to suppress a new wave of giggles as Dream interrupts his own ramble. George shakes his head. 

“Nothing, it’s—nothing’s funny,” he says between laughs. George takes a deep breath as to compose himself, but ultimately fails and falls back into a fit of laughter. “I-I swear, I’m not laughing at you, promise.”

Dream is hesitant to accept the promise, because he could state for a  _ fact  _ that George had been laughing at him and his backtracking, but he lets it go because, well—it’s  _ George,  _ and seeing the tutor stray away from stoicism was always a treat. It was like a window to the part of George hidden behind a wall built up, only capable of being cracked down by those willing enough to try—and Dream was determined to be one of those people.

Sapnap calls him “emotionally stunted”, but he was just an asshole. He didn’t understand George like Dream did. Like Dream thought he did.

Or maybe Dream really  _ was  _ smitten. Something about love making him blind—not that this could be considered  _ love,  _ per se. Not by a long shot. It was just… a sort of infatuation.  _ No, that wasn’t the word for it either… maybe it was— _

“Oh, George. I didn’t know you had someone over,” says a soft voice, lilted with a similar accent to George’s. It was an older woman, who Dream assumed to be George’s mother based on how similarly they looked.

“Tutoring, mum,” George explains. “I told you yesterday. This is—”

“Clay,” Dream introduces, smiling politely. “It’s nice to meet you.”

“You as well.” George’s mother nods her head. “Well, I’ll leave you two to it.”

True to her word, she disappears somewhere in the house, and for a brief moment Dream forgets what he had been doing just moments prior. He’s nearly startled by George’s eyes burning into him as he turns back to the table, to his tutor, and to his work.

“Sorry about that,” George apologizes, though he doesn’t  _ look _ all that apologetic. “Was there anything else you wanted to go over before we wrap up?”

Dream shakes his head. He itches to start packing up before he can make any more slip ups, if only to save his pride, now. He was lucky George didn’t push any further past Dream’s ability to speak German.

George taps an inconsistent pattern on the table, and Dream’s eyes follow every movement. Dream’s gaze flickers to George’s lips before it does his eyes, and he prays the brunet doesn’t notice how he lingers a moment too long on the lower half of his face. George takes a deep breath, seemingly unbothered, unknowing.

“Guess we can call it a day here, then.” George sighs. “You’ve gotten a lot better at this, Dream. Have you been studying outside of our sessions or something?”

_ Funny you say that,  _ Dream thinks. “I—yeah, I have been studying,” Dream replies untruthfully, as he’d been doing quite often lately. “I was really…  _ motivated _ … to improve.”

George snorts, but offers no comment. That was something Dream had noticed about George, especially through tutoring, was that George was not a talkative individual. Maybe it was just the unfamiliarity, but Dream sensed it wasn’t only a cause of that, as he packs his things in silence.

George walks him to the door like a proper gentleman, and Dream nearly cracks a joke, but he swallows back the words. The brunet bids him goodbye, and Dream is off on his way home.

_Well._ _That could have gone a lot worse,_ Dream thinks. 

Though, he also thinks that at this point he ought to start writing down all the white lies he makes up before George catches him off guard, and his entire plan comes crumbling.

His friends were probably right. It was only a matter of time.

* * *

Dream thinks of the whole situation as a sort of  _ game,  _ almost. And a dangerous one, at that.

It’s almost a game to see how many lies he could tell without fumbling over previous fibs, like Dream is toeing a line barely visible and poorly drawn out in the hopes that he’d fail. It’s not a fun game, never  _ had  _ been, and it had started to oftentimes leave Dream wishing he had just said something outright to George about liking him instead of taking this winding, idiotic detour.

It’s a game that ends up taking months with so little progress that Dream starts to wonder whether or not the journey was even worth it. And as they begin to near the end of the semester, Dream begins to panic.

But then George starts waving at him in the hall. Smiling at him. Striking up short conversations before class started or before George or Dream was pulled away by their friends. 

And Dream is helpless. Hopeless. Pathetic, and so,  _ so  _ enamoured.

The tutoring sessions feel less and less like tutoring sessions, and they begin to last much longer, too, with what used to be quiet moments now filled with talking and laughing, which eases Dream’s nerves about keeping up his act, but also puts him in a spot where he ends up slipping up more often. 

His tally is quick to grow beyond the count of all the fingers on one hand, and at some point Dream has to wonder whether or not George had already figured him out, and just didn’t want to admit it yet. Dream hopes it’s not the case, but considers it a possibility. George was not stupid, but nor was Dream as bad an actor as Sapnap claimed. Or maybe it wasn’t acting at this point. Maybe he had just developed a knack for pathological lying, which—not particularly the goal, but  _ hey, it got him somewhere. _

Was it somewhere Dream was proud of? Debatable, but he was there, and he was stuck, at least for the time being.

“Hey, Dream.” Sapnap flicks the back of his head. “Idiot. You gonna answer the question?”

Dream blinks, trying to figure out what might have been asked of him, but he draws a blank. “What was the question? I wasn’t, um. I wasn’t listening.”

“‘Course you weren’t,” Quackity teases. “Probably thinking about—oh. Hey, George.”

Dream feels his heart rate spike at Quackity’s words, even before he turns around, to where Quackity’s gaze had shifted as he slid off the desk he’d been using as a seat. He’s lucky Quackity hadn’t managed to finish what he’d been saying—not that he would have been  _ wrong. _

Dream whirls around. “George! Hi,” he says. Dream already anticipated the bullying he’d receive the moment George was out of earshot. “What’s up?”

George shrugs. He’s cradling his books in his arms, so Dream figures he had only just gotten to class. He doesn’t seem to mind Dream’s friends, at least not visibly so. “I just needed to ask you about something. About tutoring.”

Dream elbows Sapnap behind him when he starts snickering, but thankfully George doesn’t seem to pay much notice, or he simply didn’t care. He only waits expectantly for a reply from Dream.

“What about?” Dream asks. He pretends his voice didn’t crack as he does. Dream kicks Quackity’s foot under the desk when he looks like he’s about to say something. George is still stoic as ever, and yet it still felt like a thousand spotlights were all shining on Dream, waiting with bated breath for him to make any sort of mistake.

George draws his lips into a thin line. Dream couldn’t help but feel envious at how composed George seemed in contrast to how Dream felt. “Well, the library’s closed this week for maintenance, but I can’t—”

Before Dream can think about his words, they come tumbling from his mouth, and the regret is instantaneous in setting in. Had they not been in class, or surrounded by Dream’s friends, then  _ maybe  _ it wouldn’t have been so bad—but that wasn’t the case, unfortunately for Dream. The universe had decided its intention, and that was to make him suffer.

“We can do it at my house,” Dream blurts. “The session, I mean. Tutoring.”

George raises an eyebrow, and Dream swears he bites back a grin. “I got that.”

“I’ll, uh,” Dream pauses, clearing his throat. His ears burned in silent humiliation. “I’ll email you details, then. And stuff.”

George frowns, then, both in confusion and amusement, if the quirk of his lips was anything to go by. “Since when are we going back to email?” He asks. “You have my number, Dream.”

If Dream hadn’t been embarrassed before, he certainly would be now. He almost awaits his friends’ replies, right then and there. Dream can already hear them echoing in his head. Dream nods slowly. “Right. Yeah. Forgot,” Dream chokes out. “I’ll—”

Dream’s next words are cut short as their teacher claps his hands together to catch the attention of his students, signalling the start of class. George retires to his desk across the room, and Dream sinks low into his seat, doing his best to ignore the looks Quackity and Sapnap exchanged, only telling of the jokes they’d make the next time they got the chance.

The class drags on for an eternity, or at least it feels that way since Dream is unable to concentrate the entire period, his mind anywhere but in the present moment. The rest of the day proceeds just the same, asides from fresh teasing about Dream’s behaviour around George, and that he had hidden the fact he had George’s phone number—even if it was only meant for school purposes. 

Dream assures once, twice,  _ three times  _ that no one would be home the day George was coming over for tutoring, in the case that his entire plan goes up in flames the moment one of his family members (probably his younger sister) comes home and fucks him over by speaking French, of course, as a family originally from France would. 

The day doesn’t arrive for an agonizingly long time, and there are several moments where Dream just has to remind himself to  _ breathe, this is just another session. Nothing is different. Stop panicking. _

But how could he, when the tutoring would take place in the  _ one  _ environment most likely to ruin everything. If George found out, after  _ months,  _ that he’d been wasting his time with Dream, George would probably hate him.

It all starts out fine—or, as fine as things  _ could  _ start.

George arrives five minutes early as Dream had already anticipated, no one is home but Dream, no one is  _ meant  _ to be home other than Dream for several hours, and all is good. Dream has no reason to worry as he leads George to the living room.

Nothing goes wrong for the duration of George’s lesson, and as the hour creeps to an end, Dream’s relief gradually grows, like a weight slowly lifting from his shoulders. 

They don’t study as much as usual, though, and Dream isn’t quite sure what to make of their conversations outside grammar concepts.

Not that he ends up having the time to figure it out, because five minutes to the technical end of tutoring, Dream’s worst fear comes true and the front door cracks open.  _ Of course—that was just his luck. What else should Dream have expected? _

Before Dream has the chance to notify whoever it was that  _ hey, someone new is over,  _ his sister is calling out a loud and obnoxious,  _ “Allô?”  _ because, obviously, on the one day Dream had done his very best to make certain no one would disrupt him and George, she’s decided to come home early.

Now, the single word was not enough of a giveaway, but Dream could only wince as she continued to speak, so distraught that he couldn’t even look at George for the brunet’s reaction.

_ “Je sais que t’es là, Clay, j’ai vu ta voiture dans l’allée,”  _ she announces. Dream still refuses to look at George.

“You aren’t supposed to be home yet, what happened?” He shouts back, and the long pause that follows only worries Dream further, but he’s quick to figure out why it takes his sister so long to reply—he  _ rarely  _ used English in the house with family, not even when his friends were over, so now  _ she  _ would be suspicious of something.

The hole Dream had dug himself into only grows deeper, the web of lies he had spun tangling up in his words and actions.  _ So much for smooth sailing. _

Dream finally looks at George, who if anything only appears completely and utterly puzzled by the situation, which was in all honesty to be expected. “Dream, what—”

George is interrupted as Dream’s sister comes traipsing into the living room, her backpack still hanging off her shoulder as she shrugs, saying, “I wasn’t, but we decided to reschedule last—oh.”

She cuts herself off upon seeing Dream and George, and without another word, Dream’s sister simply looks between the two of them, and carries on upstairs, and quite frankly Dream isn’t too sure what to make of it.

But it happens, and now Dream is once again left alone with George.

“Do you—what was that about?” George asks. “Do you practice French or something, at home?”

Only for a brief moment does Dream consider telling George that  _ yes, that’s what that was,  _ but the better part of him knows this  _ game  _ of his has been going on for much too long. Maybe it  _ was  _ time to fess up, regardless of whether or not Dream was ready to. Served him right, perhaps.

Dream shakes his head. He stares at the textbooks and papers spread across the coffee table, not meeting George’s gaze. Dream wrings his fingers, never having felt more uncomfortable in his life. He chews the inside of his cheek as he explains.

“No, it’s, um—” Dream swallows, taking a deep breath. “What would, uh. What would you say if I told you my first language is actually French?”

Dream dares a glance at George, then, and surprisingly the brunet doesn’t appear angry. He doesn’t seem particularly  _ confused  _ anymore, either. In fact, Dream isn’t quite sure how to gage his expression, his reaction, so instead he waits patiently for George’s words.

“I might laugh, first,” George says slowly, and true to such words he does offer Dream a curt chuckle, before he continues, “and then I might wonder why you’d want a tutor for French if you already spoke it.”

Dream starts to nod, however very hesitantly. “Okay,” he replies rather pathetically. “Well, it might… maybe be because I wanted to get to know you, in the eventual hopes of asking you out? Because I… I like you. And have for… quite some time now.”

Dream cringes at his own words, only wishing for the moment to be over with. He considers pinching himself in the hopes of it all just being a very,  _ very  _ terrible dream.

The silence that stretches between them goes on for much longer than Dream likes, but George looks almost  _ dumbfounded  _ at Dream’s response, and Dream cannot for the life of him decipher whether that was a good or bad thing.

“So, what you’re telling me is,” George starts, “is that, for  _ months,  _ you’ve sat through me tutoring you in your  _ first language,  _ because you… you  _ like  _ me?”

Dream nods, wide-eyed and anxious. Anticipatory.

“Oh,” is all George says, and Dream’s heart sinks. 

“Oh?” Dream echoes, but his voice both sounds and feels distant to him. Despite his stature, Dream feels small. He had never bode well with rejection, if that’s what this was.

George worries his lip, quiet. “That’s actually…” he trails off, as if unsure what exactly to say. “That’s actually kind of… sweet? Is that the word? Endearing? I’m not sure.”

Dream doesn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He almost wants to ask George to repeat what he said to make sure it  _ was  _ what Dream was hearing, but he resists the temptation.  _ Endearing? _

“Endearing?” Dream questions. 

George shrugs. He begins to look just as flustered as Dream was starting to feel himself. “I guess. I don’t know. A waste of time, definitely, but I—I like you too, Dream. That’s why I act like, well. An asshole. I did it in the hopes that maybe I could hide my…  _ crush…  _ on you, especially when I was emailed about tutoring you. I didn’t think I’d be able to… yeah.”

“You… you like me too?” Dream asks. He felt  _ giddy,  _ first and foremost, at learning this new piece of information, though he was also disbelieving. Dream thought it reasonable—he had gone this long believing George could never like him back. That George was far too out of his league. 

George laughs, though not  _ at  _ Dream, but more so at both their expenses. Both of their idiocies and obliviousness—though, Dream had to admit that he had been much worse than George.

“I do, yeah,” George confirms. 

“Well,” Dream says awkwardly. “That’s good.”

George hums. “So, then. Would you consider us close enough to—”

“George,” Dream interjects. A sudden confidence swelled in his chest, instilled by the knowledge that his feelings towards George were returned. He smiles, hardly able to keep in his excitement.  _ “Veux-tu sortir avec moi?” _

**Author's Note:**

> (last line is dream asking george out. ofc. hope you enjoyed !)
> 
> find me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/crimsvn2)!


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